Now That Gaddafi Falleth . . .

Now that Gaddafi is falling, we are seeing sanctimonious indignation against him from even those who had been doing business with him under cover of night. The recent issue of Foreign Policy magazine paints him as the "Harvard for Tyrants." While the current rage against Gaddafi is justified, it must not be forgotten that he also did a huge service to African liberation struggle. While the West was strongly in support of apartheid in South Africa, for example, Gaddafi was helping train anti-apartheid fighters. When Bill Clinton visited South Africa during the reign of Nelson Mandela, that was one of the points which Mr. Mandela stressed. Clinton had been urging Mandela to cut ties with Gaddafi but Mandela told Clinton in public that he (Mandela) would not cut ties with Gaddafi. He stressed that Gaddafi was a friend during the darkest hours South Africa experienced. In fact, it was the CIA which blew Mandela's cover when he was arrested in the 1960s and jailed for life. This is not to defend Gaddafi; it s merely to point out that the article cited above leaves much. The fact that Gaddafi has to go does not mean that all he did was evil, as the article seems to suggest.